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At a recent event called “Charged 2011 – EV Symposium Silicon Valley”, General Motors’ western region group manager for environment and energy communications, Dave Barthmuss, told Brad Berman from Plugincars that the company may surprise us at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show with a new model, hinting at a plug-in hybrid crossover.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has announced the opening of a new research office at Mountain View, California. The new facility lies at the heart of Silicon Valley, directly across the Google campus and near some of the world’s leading software and hardware companies. The location will allow the Renault-Nissan Alliance, which already employs more than 350,000 workers and accounts for 1 in 10 new cars sold globally in 2010, to benefit from the regional engineering talent in shaping the cars of the future.
Even though hybrids and EVs are all the rage these days, a study by the Boston Consulting Group found that most automakers will be able to meet 2020 EPA emissions targets using gasoline engines that will be 40% more fuel efficient than the current powerplants. Advances in technology concerning engine downsizing, turbocharging, direct fuel injection, more efficient cooling, electric power steering and variable valve timing will help achieve this, according to the 23-page study.
Internet-giant Google has just adopted the largest workplace charging installation for electric vehicles in the U.S. with the completion of 70 “ChargePoint” stations at its Mountain View, California headquarters. The new charging infrastructure will support both employee-owned EVs and “GFleet” plug-in vehicles such as the Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF. And there are 250 more charging stations on the way, with the goal of making Google’s HQ parking facilities 5% EV-ready.
The battle for sales supremacy in the eco-friendly segment between Nissan’s pure electric Leaf and GM’s extended range Chevrolet Volt is really heating up lately, with the two models separated by only 17 cars in U.S. sales figures so far this year. And while GM is betting on the introduction of a slightly lower priced base model as well as the extended availability of the Volt in all 50 states to win this battle, Nissan is counting on increasing output to ease customer delays after production was disrupted by the Japan’s earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
Volvo is starting production of the all electric version of its compact-size hatchback which, unsurprisingly, is named the C30 Electric. After testing about 50 cars since autumn 2010, mainly internally, the Swedish automaker plans to build about 250 cars by the end of 2012 (or more if there is enough interest), which will be leased in a number of European countries, including Sweden, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The Parisian government’s self-hire electric car program Autolib’ is staring down a legal challenge from the nation’s more traditional car rental agencies, among them Avis and Hertz. According to British daily newspaper The Independent, these “self serve” Bollore EVs cost as little as €5 (£4.40) for a 30 minute journey and are modeled on the French capital’s highly successful Vélib’ bike hire operation. Some 700 four-seat Autolib’ vehicles will be rolled out from December of this year, offering green motoring for both residents and tourists alike. The Italian-built four seaters come with a 250 km battery range, radio and GPS navigation system.
Even though the new Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt are two very different cars when it comes to details, they do have a common denominator: they are the most technologically advanced eco-friendly vehicles that are mass-produced and readily available in the U.S. market. That said, it’s interesting to see how they’re doing in sales this year. Believe it or not, it’s a fierce neck-to-neck sales battle so far in 2011 with only 17 cars separating the Leaf from the Volt. Nissan has delivered 2,184 examples of the pure-electric Leaf from January to the end of May, while GM has sold 2,167 units of Chevrolet’s extended range electric vehicle in the same period.
Industrial design student Eric Leong, who we first heard about with the 2015 Toyota Prius study, has taken two famous brands, Sweden’s Saab and Switzerland’s Nestlé and melded them. The result is the Saab Nespresso Concept, a four-seat sport coupe with some clever design touches. Outwardly it looks like a cross between the 2008 Saab 9-X Air BioHybrid Concept and Toyota’s FT-86 Concept of 2009, but it’s on the detail side of things were Leong’s idea really shines.
This morning, General Motors announced pricing information for the 2012 model year Chevrolet Volt, which is now available for order in all 50 states. The 2011 Volt was offered in just seven states and the District of Columbia. The good news for buyers is that GM has dropped the base price for its extended range electric vehicle by a little over $1,000 to $39,995, which includes an $850 destination freight charge but excludes tax, title and license fees. Those that qualify for a full federal tax credit of $7,500 will see the price dropping to $32,496.
Here’s an innovative idea from Finnish designer Antti Eskeli: a four-seat luxury sedan concept with a “changeable chassis length”, making it as compact as a small hatchback for city driving. So what if the foldable car is nothing new; I’d wager one’s never looked as good as Eskeli’s Maininki concept. 
It’s just one of many entries into the 2011 Michelin Challenge Design Showcase we’ve reported on previously. There is something surprisingly masculine about Eskeli’s fluid, organic design; like cavorting dolphins or an Antarctic glacier.
The latest news from Honda’s motorsport front is that the Japanese company will campaign a CR-Z hybrid racecar at the second annual Le Mans Vers Le Futur (literally translates to ‘Le Mans to the Future’), which is a support event for the 79th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Nissan will also participate in the exhibition, which is devoted to showcasing the Le Mans racing cars of the future, with the pure-electric Leaf Nismo RC concept.
Now this is more like it. Antonio Bruno’s Electrodynamics Concept is an acrylic-bodied electric sports car design study for the 21st century. To me it sort of looks like an unlikely crossbreed between a Lamborghini Espada and a Hyundai Genesis Coupe, or maybe a next-generation Tesla Motors model. Bruno describes it thusly: “The absence of a brand reference has contributed to the free forms and is totally devoted to aerodynamic influences and perceptions typical of product design. The upper dome is formed from a tinted acrylic component that stretches up to the front bumper, where it could hide the additional headlights.”
Electric carmakers are trying hard to promote their products, with the environmentally friendly nature of these vehicles being their most exploited feature in advertising. Nissan is going down the same path with a new campaign for the fully-electric Leaf entitled “Gas Powered Everything”, in which the company mocks the internal combustion engine by imagining a strange world where all appliances run on gas. The result is a funny commercial in which people have to put up with gas-powered alarm-clocks, microwave ovens, computers and many more appliances. Even the Chevrolet Volt becomes a subject of joke for being a gas-electric hybrid. But we can't help but wonder: isn't Nissan's approach a little hypocritical? It's not like their range includes electric cars alone...
Hansjörg von Gemmingen has gained the bragging rights to say he has covered more miles in a Tesla Roadster than anybody else has. The German racked up an impressive 100,000 kilometers (62,137 miles) since he first purchased the car less than two years ago. A stockbroker living in the southwest part of the country, von Gemmingen says he drives his Tesla on a daily basis regardless of purpose or distance, charging it every night through a standard household outlet.
After awarding the Mitsubishi i-MiEV with a four-star rating, Euro NCAP, which is the European equivalent of the American IIHS, crash tested its second all-electric model, the Nissan Leaf. The Japanese hatchback achieved a five-star rating, becoming the first electric vehicle to do so.
Back in February, Porsche announced the development of three pure-electric prototypes based on the Boxster roadster, but aside from a single photo and the fact that the electric motors could produce up to 180kW/241HP, the Stuttgart-based automaker did not release any other details on the cars. 
After the demonstration of the Boxster E at last week’s Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Berlin, the company decided to share more information on the test cars that are being used as part of the government-funded “Model Region Electro-Mobility Stuttgart” large-scale trial to study the everyday practicality of all-electric vehicles. Of the three Boxster E prototypes, two are rear-wheel drive and one is all-wheel drive.
Internet and software bigwig Google has begun lobbying the state of Nevada to legalize driverless cars. The move comes on the heels of some very promising results in California, where Google had mapped out the terrain and sent a couple of its autonomous Toyota Priuses (Prii? Priora?) on an epic jaunt from Mountain View to Santa Monica. The California-based company is keen to point out the claimed benefits of self-driving cars over their human-driven counterparts including better safety, improved fuel efficient and greater environmental friendliness.
By acknowledging that wind resistance is one of the key factors in improving vehicle economy, Leong’s Prius III hybrid is extremely slippery. Described by the designer as moving, “through [the wind], not into it”, this design study channels air over its surface through a series of vanes.
Well, it turns out there’s been a slight change of plans as the Detroit automaker just announced it won’t be bringing the petrol-powered Grand C-MAX to the U.S. after all. But not all is lost for fans of the Focus-based minivan as Ford will focus on the five-seat C-MAX in both hybrid and plug-in hybrid formats. The C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid vehicles were previewed at the Detroit Auto Show this past January.
It’s just one of many entries into the 2011 Michelin Challenge Design Showcase we’ve reported on previously. There is something surprisingly masculine about Eskeli’s fluid, organic design; like cavorting dolphins or an Antarctic glacier.
After the demonstration of the Boxster E at last week’s Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Berlin, the company decided to share more information on the test cars that are being used as part of the government-funded “Model Region Electro-Mobility Stuttgart” large-scale trial to study the everyday practicality of all-electric vehicles. Of the three Boxster E prototypes, two are rear-wheel drive and one is all-wheel drive.
